Jurist. He was a German legal scholar, who is remembered for his reform of the Bavarian penal code that included abolition of torture, which later become a model for other countries. At the age of 16, he ran away from home, and stayed with relatives and managed to pursue a PhD in philosophy at the University of Jena, despite his poverty and poor health. In 1804, at the request of Emperor Maximillian Joseph I, he began his work on the penal code reform and the results of his efforts were put into Bavarian law in 1813, and it soo became the new codes in the neighboring German states of Württemberg, Saxe-Weimar, and Oldenburg. In 1814 he was appointed second president of the court of appeal at Bamberg, and three years later he became first president of the court of appeal at Ansbach. In 1821 he was sent to visit France, Belgium, and the Rhine provinces for the purpose of investigating their juridical institutions, and as a result he published his treatises "Betrachtungen über Öffentlichkeit und Mündigkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege" (Considerations on the Public and Maturity of Justice Care - 1821) and "Über die Gerichtsverfassung und das gerichtliche Verfahren Frankreichs" (On the Judiciary and Judicial Process in France - 1825). Later, he took a deep interest in the fate of the strange foundling Kaspar Hauser, a a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell, which had generated much attention in Europe. He was the first to publish a critical summary of the ascertained facts, under the title "Kaspar Hauser, ein Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben" (Kasper Hauser, an Example of a Crime Against Mental Life - 1832). He died at the age of 57.
Jurist. He was a German legal scholar, who is remembered for his reform of the Bavarian penal code that included abolition of torture, which later become a model for other countries. At the age of 16, he ran away from home, and stayed with relatives and managed to pursue a PhD in philosophy at the University of Jena, despite his poverty and poor health. In 1804, at the request of Emperor Maximillian Joseph I, he began his work on the penal code reform and the results of his efforts were put into Bavarian law in 1813, and it soo became the new codes in the neighboring German states of Württemberg, Saxe-Weimar, and Oldenburg. In 1814 he was appointed second president of the court of appeal at Bamberg, and three years later he became first president of the court of appeal at Ansbach. In 1821 he was sent to visit France, Belgium, and the Rhine provinces for the purpose of investigating their juridical institutions, and as a result he published his treatises "Betrachtungen über Öffentlichkeit und Mündigkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege" (Considerations on the Public and Maturity of Justice Care - 1821) and "Über die Gerichtsverfassung und das gerichtliche Verfahren Frankreichs" (On the Judiciary and Judicial Process in France - 1825). Later, he took a deep interest in the fate of the strange foundling Kaspar Hauser, a a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell, which had generated much attention in Europe. He was the first to publish a critical summary of the ascertained facts, under the title "Kaspar Hauser, ein Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben" (Kasper Hauser, an Example of a Crime Against Mental Life - 1832). He died at the age of 57.
Bio by: William Bjornstad
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